EU regrets leak of report on Israeli policy towards Palestinians

The European Union Thursday expressed regret over the leak of an internal report by EU diplomats in Jerusalem who expressed alarm over the expansion of Jewish settlements on occupied Palestinian lands and call for financial sanctions to be imposed on Israel.  "We don't comment on the content of a leaked report," Michael Mann, spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, told a news conference here today.  "It is a core task of any EU Delegation to report to Brussels on developments in the host country and as part of the EU foreign policy process the embassies of our member states and the EU Delegations cooperate closely in doing that," he said.  "The 2012 report on Jerusalem is an annual report that is made to the EU's political and security committee on the situation on the ground which makes a number of recommendations and we regret that it has been leaked," said Mann.  "It is supposed to serve as information for the EU and as an input to the policy making process and therefore assist the EU in determining how best to achieve the objective of a two-state solution to the Middle East Peace Process, " added the spokesman.  The EUobserver, a Brussels-based website, published the report and said it is an internal report by EU countries' consuls general in Jerusalem and Ramallah.  The reports says EU member states should "prevent financial transactions, including foreign direct investment from within the EU, in support of settlement activities, infrastructure and services," in Israel.  It adds that individual EU states should "explore the possibility of denying entry to known settler radicals." The 15-page document paints a scary picture of prospects for peace in the Arab-Israeli conflict, said the EUobserver.  "If the current Israeli policy regarding the city (Jerusalem) continues, particularly settlement activity, the prospect of Jerusalem as a future capital of two states, Israel and Palestine, becomes practically unworkable," warns the EU report.  It stresses that "settlement construction remains the single biggest threat to the two-state solution. It is systematic, deliberate and provocative." It notes that 200,000 Jewish settlers have come to live in East Jerusalem since Israel annexed it illegally in 1967 and that Israeli tenders for new settler homes more than doubled in 2012 compared to 2011.  The EU consuls general noted that Israeli administrative barriers for Palestinian schools and businesses "undermine the right to education" of 90, 000 children and aggravate poverty. They said 78 percent of Palestinians live below the poverty line today, compared to 64 percent in 2006.  They also complained about Israel's "ideological" programme.  They said it gives free rein for settler groups to dig up archaeological sites in such a way as to create a "partisan historical narrative of Jerusalem, placing emphasis on biblical and Jewish connotations of the area, while neglecting Christian/Muslim ties." They noted that Israeli police stops Palestinian textbooks getting to Palestinian schools in favour of "a version of the curriculum edited by the Israeli authorities".